


or be forever fallen

by artanogon



Category: The Brotherband Chronicles - John Flanagan
Genre: Broken Bones, Concussions, Fistfight, Gen, Heavy Angst, Major Character Injury, Original Character(s), Whump, about a character that doesn’t exist, because I wanted karl angst since. every headcanon i make for him is angst, canon is a little scurrying ugly beetle and I am grinding it to death under my shoe, made from a mess of headcanons, might have more than one part we shall see, no beta we die like idiots, ribs specifically, this is basically just some karl backstory
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:02:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26115382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artanogon/pseuds/artanogon
Summary: Karl Varnson is many things, but fundamentally, he is a stubborn bastard. This doesn’t always work out well for him.
Relationships: The Sharks Brotherband - Relationship
Comments: 9
Kudos: 8





	or be forever fallen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [smug_albatross](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smug_albatross/gifts).



> my dear sam!! friend!! chaos sib!! i love you and i love shark’s teeth and you make me cry occasionally with ur fics so i hope you enjoy this 
> 
> tw for injury ouchie stuff ahead

Karl doesn’t expect to make it past sixteen, it’s a surprise when he does. He knows it’s not normal to lose sleep because you’re worried about a knife in your back from the person in the bed across from you. He knows it’s not normal for the line between friend and enemy to be so blurred it practically doesn’t exist anymore. And yet, that’s his life. That’s always been his life, to an extent, but now it’s worse than ever. 

The worst of it happens when Pedra takes it a step too far after the night attack, when he sees the way that Jesper limped off of the field leaning on his friend for support (he’s pretty sure Pedra and Jesper know each other, he’s seen them together at the gambling hall), and confronts Tursgud about it directly. Karl’s off on a run when the argument itself happens, but he comes back into the clearing in time to see Pedra collapsed on his knees against a post holding up their shelter. Orlyg’s crouched by his side and yelling at Tursgud, his face contorted with black fury. 

Tursgud bridles angrily at the insults and Orlyg rises to the challenge. Karl barely makes it in time to throw himself between them and shove Tursgud off. He gets into a fistfight with his bastard of a cousin then and there. It’s not a clean brawl like a wrestling match, not anything close. It’s blood and bruises and half-feral snarling. He gets a good punch in on Tursgud’s jaw and hears an audible click. A hook to Tursgud’s right eye. A starburst of pain in the side of his head. A stray nail opening a scratch down his face. He can feel blood run down his cheek. 

His brain is a haze of red, a voice screaming  _ you’ve gone too far, don’t hurt my friends, don’t hurt your own fucking brotherband you sick bastard— _

“ _ Stop! _ ” Gils thunders, his voice surprisingly powerful and enough to startle them both from the heat of combat. He storms his way up to them and even Tursgud recoils at the fury written on his face. Gils isn’t like most of them. It takes a lot to get him angry, and when he does... well. Karl’s only seen it once but he never wants to again. “We have one week. One week, and this competition is over. Keep it together. I don’t care if you two want to tear each other’s guts out. We are not giving up the competition now just because Tursgud can’t handle a few insults.”

Karl doesn’t miss the murderous look that crosses Tursgud’s face. He knows Gils doesn’t either. There might be hell to pay for that. 

He nods, concedes to the point, and backs down. “One week.”

Tursgud still looks somewhere between shocked and feral, but finally he lets it go as well. Karl turns away, leaves to go for a walk on his own so he can think, crossing the rocky divide between their patch of meadow and the forest. Just like that, the fight is over. 

Except it’s not.

Someone gives a warning cry and Karl turns, but it’s already too late. Tursgud elbows him hard in the side and just like that, Karl’s sent flying back down the divide. Four metres up from the ground, with a rocky slope below him. He’s too surprised to even stand a chance.

He crashes onto the rocks and feels something break, pain stabbing in his ribs like he’s been run through by a sword. He cracks his elbow on a sharp piece of stone, feels more cuts open up on his face, and then he hits something that burns like hell, like fire, like he’s just been torn open from the inside, and he screams before he can help himself. It burns, hurts so badly he wants to sob and shriek and do anything to make the pain go away. 

He lays there. 

He hears alarmed shouts in the distance. 

He can’t move. He can’t breathe. 

He can’t think. 

Someone skids down the slope, helps lift him up, carries him back up while Karl whimpers helplessly. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts. It’s like repeated stabs in his side. He remembers once, falling out of a tree from several metres up when he was younger. He’d cried then. But this, this is worse. This is worse in a way that he can’t fully place or understand. He’d know if he were clearer-headed right now. But it’s too hard to think.

A hand touches his ribs, right where it burns the worst, and he gives a cry of agony, curling into the pain. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts— 

“Karl,” a voice says, calm and steady and familiar. Gils’, switched to a professional tone, his “medic voice” as they call it. Ah, so he’s hurt badly then. That’s helpful to know. 

A hand lifts his shirt and he curls away from it instinctively, because touch feels so  _ wrong  _ right now and that’s the  _ last  _ way he wants to be touched by anyone. He thrashes a bit, but stops when his already blurred vision goes black and he gets hit with a spike of pain so horrid he can’t breathe.

Someone draws in a breath. “Gods. That’s not good.”

“Shut up,” Gils snaps. 

Someone lifts his head, taps the side of his face and his vision focuses a bit. He can see Gils, brown-haired and dark eyed and worried as ever, biting his lip. Ragi is crouched beside him, concern written on his normally expressionless face. If  _ he’s  _ worried, it’s really got to be bad. 

Tursgud is nowhere nearby that he can see. Neither are Orlyg and Pedra. Good. That means they got away safely. Hopefully they’ll be alright for a while. 

Gods, it hurts to breathe.

“He needs help,” someone else says. Karl can’t see them and he can’t place the voice. It’s a voice with some hazy string of bad memories attached to it, but he doesn’t think about it because it’s not a voice that’s a threat. It’s getting harder and harder to think, and darkness is pulsing at the edge of his vision. It’s not just his ribs that hurt now, but all his head and torso. Careful fingers probe at his head and he groans at the pain. Someone takes a sharp breath in. 

Gils’ voice again. “I think he has a concussion too.” The hand touches his face, lifts his head slightly. Karl’s vision keeps focusing and unfocusing. It’s distracting and very unpleasant. At least he isn’t in as much pain. He can barely feel his ribs at all, actually. 

(That’s probably not good.)

“Karl, you need a healer.”

The words send a spike of panic through the foggy haze clouding his mind. If a healer comes, they’ll want to know why this happened, why Karl has broken ribs and the marks of a fight. Word will get out about what Tursgud did. And Karl would want Tursgud to feel that shame, that stigma, to be treated the way he deserved. But he’d get kicked out of the competition, the Sharks would be disbanded. They’ve come so far, endured everything. Endured mistrust and wrongdoings. They have one competition left. He can’t cost them that now, because some of them are still his brothers and he wants the glory just as much as they do.

So he catches Gils’ hand with his own. The movement brings some of the pain back and he wants to scream, but he speaks through gritted teeth. “No. No healers. Not now.”

“Karl, you—”

“One week,” he gasps, agony tearing his vision to shreds. “One week, and this is over. Won’t ruin this for you now.”

“You wouldn’t be,” Ragi’s voice says, and others chime in. But Karl knows he would. And he won’t do it. He won’t lose now, won’t give up and let Tursgud win this victory and let the Sharks go down in shame. 

So he just shakes his head again, tells them to swear they won’t call a healer. They do, and Gils patches his ribs, and Karl has to keep reminding himself to breathe. That he will survive this. That they can do this. 

(The next week’s going to be hell.)

**Author's Note:**

> damn right it is dumbass
> 
> if, IF, i do write the next chapter, it’ll be the final race with the herons and we will get   
> to see karl’s bad decisions in FULL BLOOM! THIS STUPID MOTHERFUCKER!! I LOVE HIM A LOT!!!


End file.
